Nickel alloys



Patented Dec. 26, 1933 PATENT OFFICE NICKEL ALLOYS Joseph Kent Smith, Detroit, Mich., assignor to The Beryllium Corporation, New York, N. Y., a corporation of Delaware 'No Drawing. Application December 22, 1931, 'Serial' No. 582,659. Renewed September 1,

2 Claims.

The invention relates to alloys predominant in nickel, the object of the invention being the forming of metallic materials greater in strength than ordinary nickel, and possessing other desirable 8 mechanical properties, and also subject to further improvement by heat treatment.

The elements added to nickel to form this improved alloy are beryllium, with manganese and/or magnesium. The beryllium added by my 10 invention does not generally exceed 2% of the total, while the magnesium and/or -manganese are also never in'excess of 2% in total. Thus, the nickel content of the alloys of this series is at all times 96% or greater, making a relatively l5 inexpensive metal, and the known advantages of beryllium addition are here obtained without the usual larger quantities required as a consequence of the use of the cheaper manganese and magnesium. Preferably, but not necessarily, the

beryllium content of the alloys is kept greater than that of the other metal or metals.

The alloying of the metals presents little dimculty, since the concentrated nickel-beryllium alloy used and the other metals in question are readily soluble in nickel and, therefore, their addition to molten nickel is quite simple.

To prevent oxidation of the beryllium and magnesium a thin layer of fused salt may be held on the surface of the metal until alloying is complete. A master alloy, with the desired proportion of beryllium, manganese and magnesium, but with a much lower percentage of nickel than the final alloy, should be used as the addition material to fused nickel.

The resulting alloy may be heat treated efiectively by heating to approximately 1100" 0., drawing, and then reheating to say 300 *800 C. Such heat treatment adds significantly to the hardness and strength of the alloy.

I claim:

, 1. An alloy comprising nickel,

approximately 96%, and the balanceberyllium, manganese and magnesium, with the beryllium not in excess of 2% and the magnesium and manganese each not in excess of 1% of the total.

a 2. An alloy comprising nickel, approximately 15 96%, with the balance beryllium, manganese and magnesium, with the beryllium content greater than that of the manganese and magnesium combined but not in excess of 2% of the total.

JOSEPH KENT SMITH. 

